Physical Location: For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.

Languages Represented:
English

Information for Researchers

Access

Collection is open for research.

Publication Rights

Copyright has not been assigned to The Bancroft Library. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts
must be submitted in writing to the Head of Public Services. Permission for publication is given on behalf of The Bancroft
Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which
must also be obtained by the reader.

William Emerson Ritter, professor of zoology at the University of California, was born on a Wisconsin farm on November 19,
1856, where he lived and worked for the first twenty years of his life. After graduating from the Oshkosh Normal School, he
continued his studies at Harvard in 1890, married Mary Bennett in 1891, and came to the University of California at Berkeley
in 1893 as a biology instructor. In 1899 he was elected president of the California Academy of Sciences, and that same year
took part in the famed Harriman Expedition to Alaska.

By 1904 Ritter had begun working in San Diego on what he hoped would be an exhaustive study of marine life focused on a limited
area, using the vessel
Albatross for deep water investigation. He was hence for many years to divide his time between Berkeley and La Jolla where he spent
his summers. It was on his return from a trip to Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines in 1906 that Ritter actively sought to
interest Andrew Carnegie, Edward Harriman and others in the financing of a biological station at La Jolla. Only in 1912, after
much negotiation, were final arrangements between benefactor Edward Wyllis Scripps and the University of California completed,
and Ritter named first scientific director of the new Scripps Institution of Oceanography, a position he held until 1922.
The Institution soon attracted many young men to work under Ritter's supervision, namely Harry B. Torrey, Loye Holmes Miller,
Samuel Jackson Holmes, Joseph Grinnell, Charles Atwood Kofoid, and others who would later attain prominence in the world of
science.

Ritter, vitally concerned at the lack of wide-spread dissemination of accurate but intelligible reports on scientific developments
and discoveries, as early as 1915 discussed the possibility of training professional scientists to write on scientific subjects
in a popular vein. This idea, by 1920, germinated into a full-fledged proposal for a news service known as Science Service,
which was financially backed by E. W. Scripps, and officially commenced in February 1921.

A man of varied interests, and a strong believer in the humanity of science, Ritter was fascinated by the relationship of
science to religion, and of biology to social questions, and his numerous published works reflecting his philosophy include
War, Science and Civilization;The Higher Usefulness of Science and Other Essays; The Probable Infinity of Nature and Life; The Scientific Method of Reaching Truth; The Natural History of Our Conduct (with Edna W. Bailey); and
The Organismal Conception (with Edna W. Bailey). As a result of his study of the activities of animals under natural conditions, he evolved his concept
of "organism as a whole" which was published as
The Unity of the Organism, or the
Organismal Theory of Consciousness in 1918. A second part to this work was planned, and though written in large part and revised, it was never completed. A detailed
study of woodpeckers and their acorn-storing proclivities culminated in the publication of his
California Woodpeckers and I by the University of California Press. Ritter had also partially written a work tentatively entitled
The Ocean and its Life, which he never finished. Over a period of years he collaborated with Edna Watson Bailey on his
Charles Darwin and the Golden Rule, a distillation of his many writings on the subject, completed by Mrs. Bailey only after Ritter's death. Ritter also contributed
many articles on a variety of subjects to learned journals.

A member of the California Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and many other scientific
organizations, Ritter took part in the 1923 Pan-Pacific Scientific Congress held in Australia, and went to England for the
International Congress of Science and Technology in 1931.

Emeritus in 1924, Ritter was to continue his scientific work and writing for many years. Although childless, he was much interested
in children and in their education, and at this time supported the Berkeley Children's Community School where he taught natural
science. He also was a strong advocate for the teaching of evolution in the California public schools.

In failing health since 1941, Ritter died in Berkeley on January 10, 1944.

Scope and Content

The papers, given to The Bancroft Library by Mrs. Edna Watson Bailey, his literary executor, in 1970-1971, include correspondence
and subject files relating to Ritter's professional career at the University of California, to the development of the field
of marine biology, and to the foundation of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. In addition there is also much material
concerning the establishment of Science Service. Also included are diaries, field notes and drawings, manuscripts and reprints
of many of his writings, extensive files of notes and clippings, books heavily annotated by Ritter, and writings by colleagues.
Small groups of Papers of his wife, Mary Bennett Ritter, relating to her study of medicine and her teaching career at the
University of California, and of Edna Watson Bailey concerning her work as Ritter's literary executor, are also included

Photographs and portraits have been removed to the Picture Collection.

A key to arrangement describing the collection in greater detail, and a list of the major correspondents follow.

Note

The original finding aid contains the following sentence: “Additional material, located at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography
at La Jolla, is described in the appendix.” However, no appendix could be found at the time this finding aid was encoded.